Every Election Matters.Just a few days left before the Durham City Council elections. The early vote tallies are very low at the Board of Elections – only 2,491 Durhamites have voted so far. When I talked to parents out trick-or-treating with their kids on Club Blvd on Halloween, only a few even knew there was a city election! So we have to do a better job of getting out the word to folks about why this election matters – and why they should vote!I am assuming all of you are part of that 2,491 total. If not, I know you will show up at your local precinct voting place on Tuesday to be sure that your voice is heard. But please use your voice more. Talk to neighbors and coworkers and make sure they come out to vote too. And if you have time this afternoon or Tuesday, please join Durham People’s Alliance in their efforts to get out the vote!Canvassers will be heading out from their Green St office today at 1:30 PM and all day Tuesday. You can sign up herehttp://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C054FABA82CA57-volunteer/1105392Teachers need our support more than ever! The Durham Association of Educators' "I Heart Public Schools Rally" was postponed till Friday November 8, 4:30-6:00 PM. Join us at at the downtown Durham "Bull" Plaza at the intersection of Corcoran and Chapel Hill Streets. [Be sure to check our website every week for announcments of new events and changes like this...it's www.durhamdemwomen.org]We need to make our voices heard on health care reform.In a country as rich as ours, everyone should have access to healthcare. That was the premise behind the affordable care act. Although, given U.S. politics and economics, it got redefined as everyone should have access to health care insurance. The idea was that if the insurance companies and doctors and hospitals all thought they were going to make money by expanding the pool of insured, they would go along with reform. And they did. We got the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act passed in 2009. But then the Republicans decided that giving everyone access to the same public goods that every other advanced democracy in the world offers its citizens would give too much of an advantage to the Democrats. And they set about waging war against health care reform – using every tactic they could think of. (If you think the attacks are not orchestrated look at this piece from 2009 laying out the arguments that Republicans should use http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=130628F1-18FE-70B2-A81BBE8E2316F81D )That war is continuing. The Republicans will do everything they can to delay implementation so that no one can enjoy the benefits of the Affordable Care Act before the 2014 election. That’s why they are all clamoring about the failure of the website (which, of course, is not a good thing) and Obama’s false promises (“If you like your plan, it won’t change.” They know these are usual startup woes – in this case complicated by how much more complicated this kind of private plan is than a simple Medicare-for-all plan. But they have to raise a rucus now. To do everything they can to keep people from signing on. So that it won’t succeed. And they are going to use it as an issue in the 2014 election: to turn it into an “albatross” so that both Republicans and Democrats running for office will disown it.We need you to raise your voices about health care. Now and often. Let’s drown Governor McCrory’s office in a sea of letters and cards urging him to Expand Medicaid now for the benefit of everyone in North Carolina. Let’s flood his phone lines with calls urging him to act now. Ohio’s Governor John Kasich has accused his state legislature of waging an anti-Christian war on the poor by refusing to expand Medicaid and he has found a way to enact Medicaid Expansion without legislative support. Surely McCrory and his budget director Art Pope can do the same. If they feel enough pressure. That all depends on us. So sign on to ProgressNC’s petition. And make it part of your daily routine to reach out to our Governor and urge him to expand Medicaid now. Visit our website to find addresses and phone numbers at http://www.durhamdemwomen.org/healthcare.htmlAnd please let’s help get out the truth about the affordable care act. Write letters to the editor of the Herald and the N&O in response to articles in the paper about the Affordable Care Act or in response to other letters to the editor. We need to counter all that false propaganda about what it will do. There’s lots of background information on our website to help you write your letter…and send us copies atdurhamdemwomen@gmail.com We’ll track them and share them with others writing letters. We can build a great team ready to fight attacks – like the one Americans for Prosperity has already launched against Kay Hagan.Inside Corner on DDWJust want to let you all know that we were unable to hold our election of officers at our October meeting because we did not have a quorum of members present. Now that we have well over 100 members, we need nearly 40 members present to have an election. So we have put off the election till our next meeting, January 12, 2014. It’s the start of a new membership year so we certainly should have enough members present to hold the election. We are hoping that at that time we will not only have a slate of existing officers to put forward for re-election, but that we will also have a slate of proposed co-officers. Our bylaws allow us to have co-officers for every position and the Executive Committee is hoping this will be a strategy that will encourage folks who are interested in helping lead the organization to step up.We know that DDW has been an important actor in the Durham political scene in the two years since we reactivated the organization in the summer of 2011. And we know that one reason that the previous incarnation of the organization went inactive was that folks weren’t interested in taking on leadership responsibility. If you think that we now bring an added value to the Durham political scene and want to see us continue, it’s important that you help us grow the organization and build a strong leadership pipeline. That’s our goal for proposing co-officers. Being a co-officer will give you a chance to “learn the ropes” and keep the workload manageable since we will be able to share responsibilities. Please think about stepping forward if you are a member of DDW. We’d love to have you join our team. Just email me at durhamdemwomen@gmail.comand we can talk about it.Well, I think I’ll stop here.I know I promised you a report on the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum but this eletter has already been too long and I want to send it out.So next week. I promise. If you promise to write or call the Governor.SondraSondra G. SteinPresidentDurham Democratic Women